Baby Shark song becomes Britain's eighth most-streamed track

By Kim Joo-heon Posted : November 17, 2022, 10:43 Updated : November 17, 2022, 17:31

[Courtesy of Pinkfong]

SEOUL -- "Baby Shark," a catchy cartoon song created by South Korea's educational entertainment company Pinkfong, became the eighth most-streamed song in Britain, beating Despacito, a popular song released by Puerto Rican singer Luis Fonsi featuring rapper Daddy Yankee in 2017. Britain's "Official Chart" is known as one of the world's top song charts along with the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.
 
Pinkfong Company said in a statement on November 17 that Baby Shark was streamed more than 200 million times on the UK Singles Chart. The chart ranks songs based on the accumulated number of streamings in Britain for 70 years between 1952 and 2022. The cartoon song that depicts a story about a family of great white sharks with a hooking melody entered the British chart's top 100 for 73 weeks. Despacito ranked No. 9, followed by "Shallow," a 2018 folk-pop song by Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper. Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You" ranked at No. 21.  

Pinkfong has collaborated with various artists including American hip-hop singer Cardi B and K-pop girl band New Jeans. The company aims to beef up its influence in Japan through collaboration with Nonoka Murakata, a four-year-old Japanese singer, who garnered attention for her outstanding performance at a nursery contest. The educational entertainment company is preparing to host a live performance in 2023 in Japan.
 
The "Baby Shark Dance" video uploaded in 2016 is now one of the most-watched on YouTube. "The fact that Baby Shark ranked eighth in Britain's official chart after recording 10 billion views for the first time in YouTube history in January 2022 proves the ripple effect of K-content and K-pop," Pinkfong CEO Kim Min-seok said in a statement on November 17. 

Pinkfong has collaborated with various foreign voice actors to produce content in many different languages. According to Pinkfong's communications manager Yeon Hee-jae, choosing the right words that fit each culture has been quite challenging when translating original lyrics into other languages. 
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